Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of politics, policy, news and opinion

obama a/k/a GoldwaterMcCarthyHoover

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About this blog

Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of politics, policy, news and opinion.
This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion section of the MetroWest Daily News. As such, our focus starts in the
...

Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of politics, policy, news and opinion.
This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion section of the MetroWest Daily News. As such, our focus starts in the MetroWest/495 area and spreads from there to include Massachusetts, the nation and the world. You'll also find here lots of cross-referencing to columns and editorials in the MetroWest Daily News.

The blog presents an opportunity for readers to comment directly and immediately on pieces that appear on the print pages.

On the weekly radio show that I do, this morning’s conversation was dominated by Obama’s trip to Europe. Our usually thoughtful liberal blurted out something interesting. He said that he had started to notice that Obama reminds him of Barry Goldwater, J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy wrapped in to one, and I, frankly, don’t think he meant it as a compliment. But I do see his point. This Regime’s obsession with secrecy and domestic spying does bring to mind J. Edgar Hoover, the War on Terrorism which seems to have criminalized freedom of association by Muslims which has led, particularly in Massachusetts under Carmen Ortiz, to a parade of political show trials and political prisoners seems very McCarthyesque. And this morning, our discussion centered around the fact that Obama’s policy in Ukraine reeks of Barry Goldwater and Robert Taft’s urging of “rollback.” Rollback rejects the notion of containment of Russia into its sphere of influence on the periphery of NATO, and sought to “liberate” states within the Russian orbit. Since Ukraine is within and always has been within the Russian orbit, what Obama is trying to do is what even mainstream Republicans once deemed extreme. The analogies are a stretch, but I do think they fit. Obama a Reaganaut? Who would have guessed it?